Large companies and organizations typically purchase a significant amount of travel services from a number of different airlines (or travel carriers). A large company (e.g., IBM), with offices and employees located throughout the world, has a significant need for travel services. On any given day, a large company may have hundreds or even thousands of employees traveling from one location to another. Although employees may travel throughout the world, significant travel also takes place between office locations such as the headquarters, manufacturing plants, distribution centers, and the like.
Because of the high volume and frequency of travel, large companies are often able to negotiate special rates and discounts with the travel carriers. Indeed, it is common for any one large company to enter into travel contracts with several travel carriers. These contracts, however, unless properly negotiated and drafted, may not always save the company money. Although a particular contract with a particular carrier may provide a negotiated savings for travel between certain times, to certain locations, and between certain airport hubs, the inconvenience and contractual obligations may result in a net loss in the long run because of, for example, employees missing flights with the negotiated carrier and purchasing last minute flights on non-contract airlines.
Several factors help to determine the net cost savings to the company. Traditionally, companies have attempted to take into account a variety of conditions to optimize their travel needs to negotiate better cost savings. Examples of some of these devices and methods include (1) U.S. Pat. No. 5,832,453 (“Computer System and Method For Determining A Travel Scheme Minimizing Travel Costs for An Organization”) issued on Nov. 3, 1998 and assigned to Rosenbluth, Inc.' and (2) U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 2001/0034526A1 (“Tool for Analyzing Corporate Airline Bids”) published on Oct. 25, 2001; the contents of both are incorporated herein by reference. The '453 Patent, in particular, describes a system and process that attempts to determine a travel scheme to minimize travel costs for an organization. The '453 patent relates to a linear programming model that takes into account various conditions and constraints in an effort to determine the minimum travel costs for any particular company during any particular period of time. The system and method described in the '453 patent is limited, however, in that the programming algorithm uses a simplified linear programming model (e.g., objective function analyzing sets of travel information constraints) and only a few available input parameters. Although this model solves some of the traditional problems in the industry, this over-simplified model does not accurately reflect the complex and real life variables which are common-place in today's travel carrier industry.